At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [15]
“The pools,” added Lindsay.
Lori ignored her. “You could keep this place filled just about year around! That’s twelve hundred dollars a day! That’s eight thousand dollars a week! Thirty-six thousand dollars a—”
“We can do the math,” Cici said.
And Bridget added gently, “Honey, running a B&B is hard work. And there are licenses and codes and permits and regulations . . .”
“And it may be a tad bit optimistic to count on keeping all the rooms rented,” Lindsay said. “In such a slow economy.”
“Bottom line,” Cici said simply, but firmly, “we are not pimping out our house. We’ve worked too hard and love it too much to have strangers tramping through it for money. And I am definitely not sleeping in the cellar.”
“Ida Mae does,” Lori pointed out defensively.
“Ida Mae has her own room with a bath and private entrance from the garden. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s how she likes it. I, on the other hand, like my big sunny upstairs bedroom with its claw-foot tub and heart pine floors. I like it so much that I left everything I knew and went into enormous debt for it. So I think I’ll just stay there, thanks.”
“Me, too,” said Bridget.
“Me, too,” agreed Lindsay.
Lori blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs, and her face settled into lines of disappointment. “Well,” she said, “I guess I had a feeling you might say that.” And then she cheered. “But it was a pretty good plan for a first try, wasn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Cici.
“Couldn’t ask for more.”
“Brilliant,” said Lindsay.
“Okay, then, it’s back to the drawing board.” She gave them a wave with her legal pad as she swung toward the door. “I’ll be back!”
Bridget laughed softly as the door closed behind her and the porch faded to dusk again. “Do you know what I love about having Lori here?”
Cici slid a glance toward her. “Name one thing. I dare you.”
“Every time I look at her I’m reminded that I never, ever have to be twenty years old again.”
“Amen,” said Lindsay.
And Cici agreed, “I’ll drink to that.”
They rocked forward in unison, clinked glasses, and drank.
Stillness fell as the sky was leached of the last of its color. The birds settled in their nests; the animals slept in their stalls. The mountains, framed by the stark silhouettes of knotty tree branches, swelled indigo against a neutral background. The earth, not yet accustomed to holding the sun’s warmth, gave up a damp chill that smelled of decaying mulch and sweet budding grass. The women lingered, ignoring the prickling flesh on their arms, sipping their wine in companionable silence, wrapped in the contentment of the night.
“Spring,” said Bridget softly, at last. “Welcome home.”
3
In Another Time
Pearl, 1863
When Pearl stood beside her Papa’s grave with her hand wrapped in Mother’s cold, cold one, she did not cry. She was only six, and she understood that Papa had been kicked in the head by Caesar, their big red stallion, and had gone to live with Jesus and wasn’t coming back, but she didn’t understand why Mother wept so, if Papa was with Jesus, except that maybe she missed him. Later that day Mother put a rifle in the hands of Ebenezer, the big black man who helped Papa take care of the horses, and then they buried Caesar in a big hole that took half a dozen field hands almost a day to dig. Pearl wanted to cry for Caesar, who Mother said with a mean look in her eye was not with Jesus, but in the end she did not.
She was eight when the soldiers in the gray coats came and drove away all their horses, and even though Mother stood screaming in the yard after them and when they were gone she fell to her knees and wept in the dirt, Pearl did not cry. It seemed to her that eight years old was too old to cry over horses, because Mama Madie said she was almost a young lady now, and because it scared her to see her own mama carrying on so.
When all the field hands ran off, and even Ebenezer and Lula in the kitchen and Old Luke, who